Codifying the Criminal Law in Argentina: Provincial and National Codification in the Genesis of the First Penal Code

Abstract

This essay analyzes the gradual process of criminal reform in the territories that would form Argentina throughout the 19th century. After the independence and in spite of different attempts for establishing a new republican system, the reform of the criminal laws did not have the revolutionary pace that one could expect. The Spanish colonial law persisted during the first half of the 19th century. The first national penal code was enacted in 1886, two decades after the constitutional organization of the country (1853-1860). We will describe the process of coding the criminal law, paying attention to the inherent complexity derived from the hybridism of the Argentinean constitutional model (half Federal, half Unitarian). In order to get a better comprehension of the way in which actors of the time understood the codification process, we will look at the archives, focusing our view in the experience of the Province of Cordoba, the second district in population and territory of the country. These primary sources help us to understand the way in which the daily justice administration gradually encompassed the codification process. Finally, we cast some doubts about the efficacy of the first national penal code for achieving the sought after legal uniformity.